P8 NASA SPoRT current and future modeling and data assimilation activities with WRF, LIS, and GSI

Case, Jonathan L., ENSCO Inc. and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Bradley T. Zavodsky, NASA, Clay B. Blankenship, Jayanthi Srikishen, Universities Space Research Association and NASA, and Emily B. Berndt, NASA

The NASA Short-term Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) program has numerous modeling and data assimilation activities in which the WRF model is a key component. SPoRT generates numerous research satellite products from instruments such as the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Suomi-NPP Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), and makes such datasets available to its NOAA/ NWS partners. Datasets transitioned for use in initializing local models within the WRF/Environmental Prediction System (EMS) package include: (1) a multi-sensor sea surface temperature composite over much of the northern and western hemispheres at 2-km resolution, (2) real-time daily, MODIS green vegetation fraction (GVF) covering the Conterminous U.S. (CONUS), and (3) real-time NASA Land Information System (LIS) on a 3-km grid running the Noah land surface model over the southeastern CONUS. Each of these datasets have been utilized by specific SPoRT partners in local model runs, who are evaluating the impacts of these datasets on their local WRF/EMS model runs, focusing on convective initiation and heavy rainfall.

SPoRT is also actively engaged in data assimilation research with the Gridpoint Statistical Interpolation (GSI) 3D variational assimilation system. Ongoing projects include atmospheric river research (with the HydroMeteorological Testbed) over a northern Pacific domain in which NASA Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) retrieval profiles of temperature and moisture are assimilated to improve the analysis and forecasts of atmospheric rivers impinging on the U.S. West Coast. Additionally, SPoRT is comparing the impacts of assimilating AIRS radiances versus retrieved profiles on WRF forecasts mimicking the operational North American Mesoscale data assimilation cycle. As part of the NASA Postdoctoral Program, Dr. Berndt is analyzing extra-tropical cyclone cases of intense non-convective wind events and possible association with “sting jets”. To aid this analysis, WRF/GSI is run for select events by assimilating Environmental Modeling Center operational data with retrieved profiles of temperature and moisture from AIRS and the Suomi-NPP satellite.

Future modeling and data assimilation projects at SPoRT will involve enhancing current research capabilities, while exploring areas such as soil moisture data assimilation within LIS. SPoRT plans to expand the real-time LIS-Noah runs by summer 2013 from the current southeastern CONUS domain to a full CONUS domain using the National Mosaic and multi-sensor QPE product to drive the offline LSM integration. Research will expand into soil moisture data assimilation using the Ensemble Kalman Filter built into LIS for both the current European Space Agency Soil Moisture Ocean Salinity and upcoming NASA Soil Moisture Active Passive mission, focusing on the impacts of assimilating L-band soil moisture data. Finally, SPoRT plans to incorporate real-time global GVF data from the new VIIRS product currently being developed and evaluated by NOAA/NESDIS. This presentation will highlight the various research and transition applications SPoRT conducts using WRF, LIS, and GSI.